Trans-boundary pollution and international migration

Adopting the basic Ricardian static trade model, Two-country (Home and Foreign), Two-goods (Agricultural and Industrial) and One-factor (labour) model with environmental resource, we extended Copland and Taylor (1999) in three points. Firstly, we assumed pollution should be trans-boundary. Secondly, we considered the technical difference between two countries. Thirdly, we introduced international migration. We assumed that the only difference between two countries is the pollution protecting technology caused by industrial production. There will occur three different situations depending on the strength of demand on industrial good. Firstly, if industrial good is strongly preferred, the country with low technology (country L) will specialize in production of industrial good and another country (country H) will produce both goods. In this case, if trade is permitted, country L will gain while whether country H will gain or not is ambiguous. Moreover, after free trade, there occurs no international migration. Secondary, if both goods are preferred almost equally, then country H (L) will specialize agricultural (industrial) good. Whether free trade is beneficial or not for each country depends on parameters. After trade, there remains wage gap between two countries and therefore international migration from L to H will occur. Thirdly, if industrial good is weakly preferred, then country L produces both goods while country H produces agricultural good only. In this case free trade will reduce the economic welfare of country L while the effects on country H is ambiguous. After free trade, workers will migrate from L to H if permitted. In the second and third cases, migration expands the production of agricultural good but reduces that of industrial good and it will continue until comparative advantage of each country diminishes. If we consider that one of the two goods is non-tradable, there is no possibility of international trade but if international migration is permitted, workers in country L will migrate to country H, which will not end before all of inhabitants in country L quit their home country.

Legal and Illegal Immigration in an Efficiency Wage Model

In the developed countries like EU and Japan, some young native people dare to enjoy voluntary unemployment. Though they can easily find relatively low-wage job, they prefer to work part-time and look for a chance to to get high-wage job. Moreover the illegal unskilled foreign (legal skilled foreign [or domestic but from different region]) workers are complementary (substitutional) to the natives of that region and their wage is usually low (high). Reflecting this situation, we introduce two types of immigrants in an efficiency wage model (with two different job-sectors) by Shapiro and Stiglitz. The co-existence of these immigrants also permits us to analyze the importance of legality.

Government transparency and expenditure in the rent-seeking industry: the case of Japan for 1998-2004

Since the end of the 1990s, local governments in Japan have enacted Information Disclosure Ordinances, which require the disclosure of official government information. This paper uses Japanese prefecture-level data for the period 1998?2004 to examine how this enactment affected the rate of government construction expenditure. The Dynamic Panel model is used to control for unobserved prefecture-specific effects and endogenous bias. The major finding is that disclosure of government information reduces the rate of government construction expenditure. This implies that information disclosure reduces losses from rent-seeking activity, which is consistent with public choice theory.Information disclosure; Special interest group; Construction expenditure; Rent seeking

Total ozone by lunar Dobson observation at Syowa, Antarctica

The lunar Dobson observation is almost the only way to get the total ozone in or around the polar night season at high latitudes where the total ozone observation by solar Dobson is not available. The total ozone observations by lunar Dobson were carried out at Syowa Station (69 S, 40 E), Antarctica in 1969, and 1982 to 1986, in the months from March to October. The method, the accuracy and the results of the lunar Dobson observation carried out at Syowa Station from 1982 to 1986 are described

Temporary and Permanent Immigration under Unionization

This paper investigates permanent and temporary immigration and remittance under the coexistence of unionized and non-unionized manufacturing firms in a two-sector economy. The impacts of immigration as well as remittance on respectively wages, employment, the union-nonunion wage gap and national welfare are analyzed. It is found that permanent immigration brings positive effects on most variables (except the competitive wage), but enlarges the wage gap and causes income redistribution. The effects of temporary immigration diverge depending on which sector immigrants are allowed to work in and which good is remitted more heavily. In particular, if temporary immigrants work in manufacturing only, then all wages and the union-nonunion wage gap fall. JEL Classification Numbers: F22, J51 Keywords: Temporary and Permanent Immigration, Labor Unions, Remittance, Wage

Legal and Illegal Immigration in an Efficiency Wage Model

In the developed countries like EU and Japan, some young native people dare to enjoy voluntary unemployment. Though they can easily find relatively low-wage job, they prefer to work part-time and look for a chance to to get high-wage job. Moreover the illegal unskilled foreign (legal skilled foreign [or domestic but from different region]) workers are complementary (substitutional) to the natives of that region and their wage is usually low (high). Reflecting this situation, we introduce two types of immigrants in an efficiency wage model (with two different job-sectors) by Shapiro and Stiglitz. The co-existence of these immigrants also permits us to analyze the importance of legality

Trans-boundary pollution and international migration

Adopting the basic Ricardian static trade model, Two-country (Home and Foreign), Two-goods (Agricultural and Industrial) and One-factor (labour) model with environmental resource, we extended Copland and Taylor (1999) in three points. Firstly, we assumed pollution should be trans-boundary. Secondly, we considered the technical difference between two countries. Thirdly, we introduced international migration. We assumed that the only difference between two countries is the pollution protecting technology caused by industrial production. There will occur three different situations depending on the strength of demand on industrial good. Firstly, if industrial good is strongly preferred, the country with low technology (country L) will specialize in production of industrial good and another country (country H) will produce both goods. In this case, if trade is permitted, country L will gain while whether country H will gain or not is ambiguous. Moreover, after free trade, there occurs no international migration. Secondary, if both goods are preferred almost equally, then country H (L) will specialize agricultural (industrial) good. Whether free trade is beneficial or not for each country depends on parameters. After trade, there remains wage gap between two countries and therefore international migration from L to H will occur. Thirdly, if industrial good is weakly preferred, then country L produces both goods while country H produces agricultural good only. In this case free trade will reduce the economic welfare of country L while the effects on country H is ambiguous. After free trade, workers will migrate from L to H if permitted. In the second and third cases, migration expands the production of agricultural good but reduces that of industrial good and it will continue until comparative advantage of each country diminishes. If we consider that one of the two goods is non-tradable, there is no possibility of international trade but if international migration is permitted, workers in country L will migrate to country H, which will not end before all of inhabitants in country L quit their home country

Cu Wiring Fabrication by Supercritical Fluid Deposition for MEMS Devices

Process technologies that use supercritical CO2 fluids to fabricate high-aspect-ratio three-dimensional nano- and micro-components are described. Supercritical CO2 is a state of CO2 above the critical point. Supercritical CO2 fluids are used as alternatives to common media (gases and liquids) in MEMS device fabrication to both overcome the drawbacks of these materials and to realize a superior three-dimensional process opportunity. Supercritical fluids behave as both gases and liquids, offer many of the advantages of both, and have zero surface tension. Supercritical fluids are an ideal medium for fabricating very high-aspect-ratio features owing to their superior capability of diffusion transport. As MEMSs have complex and high-aspect-ratio structures, using a supercritical fluid as a process medium in MEMS fabrication provides ideal performance in film coating, plug filling of concave features, and the etching/cleaning of residues. In this chapter, the physicochemical properties of supercritical fluids are first described in terms of MEMS processing, but from a different point of view than that of the common literature on supercritical chemical processing. Next, various applications to thin film processing are described with a focus on interconnect/wiring fabrication of MEMS devices

Diversifying Piano Literature: East Asian Music for Piano Study and Performance in the United States

This research paper describes the extent piano music by East Asian composers has been incorporated in piano teaching at the college level in the United States. Included are the results of a survey of piano teachers at National Association of Schools of Music-accredited collegiate institutions; a discussion of the need for diversification of piano literature given the demographics of piano students in the United States; and several strategies to incorporate piano music by East Asian composers. The paper also includes a list of composers and resources available for obtaining piano works by East Asian composers

Subsidy to environmental industry in a North-South model of trans-boundary pollution, trade and migration

Differences in environmental regulation between rich and poor countries have caused a geographical relocation of polluting industry from the former to the latter. In several cases the reduction in domestic emissions is at least partly compensated by an increase in trans-boundary pollution which is detrimental to the productivity of environmental sensitive sectors (such as agriculture) industry in a developed country. Can a government in a rich country try to correct the negative consequences of trans-boundary pollution when mechanisms such as binding international agreements are difficult to implement? In this paper we build a simple North-South model of trade where the manufacturing plants are completely outsourced in a developing country and we analyze the effects of a subsidy program to pollution abatement industry located in the North. We find that, contrarily to common intuition, the subsidy to the pollution abatement equipment industry might reduce welfare in the North when the efficiency of the pollution abatement technology is already relatively high and when the wage gap between the North and South is high. In addition we find that international migration might have a positive impact on improving the environmental stock and welfare in the North and might be a more efficient and less distortive way to address the trans-boundary externality